How to Catch More Flies with Honey and Vinegar: Integrating Voluntary Programs with Codes and Standards in California

Patrick L. Eilert, Jonathan L. Livingston, and Peter W. Turnbull, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Keywords

Abstract

We conduct demand-side management (DSM) based on two distinct and oft-times competing concepts. The first emphasizes obtaining direct energy savings through customer transactions, usually via incentive programs. The second emphasizes market transformation (MT), characterized by interventions to permanently alter market behavior. Although efficiency advocates value both concepts, we generally fail to make linkages between the two.

The result? Significant lost opportunities. Policy makers and regulators overlook the benefits of program integration, instead mandating program mixes and reporting systems which fail to encourage—or capture—enhanced results achievable through an integrated process. This deprives portfolio managers and program designers of clear guidance regarding the value of portfolios designed to both save energy and transform markets. Collectively, California’s DSM industry misses the chance to ensure that savings programs amplify results from MT programs, and vice-versa.

This paper applies innovation diffusion (ID) as a framework supporting the concept of program integration: establishing strategically-informed portfolios coordinating energy savings programs with MT programs as a foundation for a new era in DSM. We particularly emphasize the prospective value of stronger linkages between “resource acquisition” incentive programs and energy codes and appliance standards (C&S) enhancement programs, emerging technologies (ET) programs, and research and development (R&D).